BJP, Congress slam Arvind Kejriwal, demand apology

New Delhi: Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday came down heavily on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after a former AAP MLA accused him of trying to poach six Congress MLAs to form government last year and avoid facing the assembly polls.

In a strong reaction, Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken expressed "shock" over the allegation and said he mentioned about it during the campaign for the assembly polls but Kejriwal had rejected it as "bunch of lies".

"This is really shocking. I knew that AAP had approached our MLAs and tried to lure them to quit the party. It is now very clear that AAP can go to any extent to grab power," he said.

The newly-appointed DPCC chief said he was strongly opposed to Congress extending support to AAP when the party tried to form government couple of months after its Lok Sabha poll debacle.

Must Read: Nothing 'illegal, immoral' in contacting Congress MLAs: AAP"I opposed supporting AAP as it would have been seen as Congress hankering after power. I compliment our then party MLAs for rejecting AAP's offer. The AAP must have offered some allurement. But our MLAs did not fall for them," Maken said.

An audio tape of purported conversation between Kejriwal and former AAP legislator from Rohini Rajesh Garg surfaced on Wednesday in which the AAP leader was heard talking about splitting the Congress.

Leader of the BJP Legislature Party in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta said that the "double standard" of AAP has been exposed by audio tape.

He also demanded an apology from Kejriwal to the people of Delhi as they were feeling "cheated".

"On the one hand Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was talking to the former MLA of AAP and was trying to split the Congress to get the support of its MLAs and on the other hand he was claiming before the people not to adopt any immoral methods," said Gupta.

He alleged that Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and AAP leader Sanjay Singh were also involved in it. Gupta also demanded an investigation.